


clowns, all of you clowns

by The_Resurrection_3D



Series: ETF [6]
Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Fluff, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Scraps
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2019-10-03 02:12:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 11,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17275148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Resurrection_3D/pseuds/The_Resurrection_3D
Summary: You fall asleep with his arm clutched to your chest.Various Eddsworld ficlets/scraps from last year. First chapter has the table of contents.





	1. Table of Contents

**Author's Note:**

> Basically I've snapped. 2018 I wrote almost 156k in Eddsworld fic, and apparently only posted barely over 30k of it. This is so fucking stupid. 
> 
> So we're at that part of my personal horseshoe saga, aren't we? 
> 
> Most of these come from my Crimson Bound and EddTord Finale projects. Context will be provided. Not much editing aside from spelling errors and maintaining minimum coherency. The style/quality is gonna be fucking ALL over the place so just be ready.
> 
> You can read the only part of CB I've posted [here (NSFW),](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15236916) and ETF [ here. ](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1222100) UPDATE, 5/15/19: I've posted more of the CB AU, which you can read more about [here (links to other parts, in chronological order)](https://theresurrection3d.dreamwidth.org/882.html) or [here (more on the basic set-up)](https://the-resurrection-3d.tumblr.com/cb).
> 
> happy fuckin new years

If I haven't assigned a ship to something, that's because it can be read as either platonic or romantic. (Gen) means no ambiguity, at least none intended. Enjoy.

* = CB AU, these may not make full sense, but you can get the general idea

** = ETF, these you can all read fine, don't worry about it 

  1. Tord harasses Edd about mini golf *
  2. The boys are boys (Gen)
  3.  In which Tord and Paul comfort Patryck (TordPauPat)*
  4. Tord comforts Edd after a nasty breakup **
  5.  Edd and Tord discuss Marxism
  6. Edd and Tord go to mini golf (EddTord)*
  7.  PauPat Neighbors AU (PauPat)**
  8.  Past and Future meet (EddTord)**
  9. Paul comforts Pat (PauPat)
  10.  "One day he's going to stop believing you, you know." (TordPauPat)
  11.  Tord has social anxiety (TordPat)
  12.  The Red Army discusses the hottest way to be murdered, don't @ me (brief EddTord)
  13. a discussion of daddy kink and death (Tord/Unspecified)
  14.  "When Paul is 53, he dies. It goes like this." / Afterlife AU (PauPat, briefly referenced TordPauPat)*
  15.  Tom does something unfortunate to his genitals (Gen)*
  16.  Yep, Tom helps an "OC" none of you have heard of behead a deer (Gen)*
  17.  Eduardo gets the upper hand (Gen)*
  18. TomTord angst 
  19. Coldplay - Yellow (trap remix) (TomEdd)
  20.  Future Edd and Scribble Tom spend some time together (Gen)
  21. Tord has a brilliant suggestion 
  22.  Monster Paul/Regular Pat AU, leave me alone
  23. Edd's taking Tord on a little detour **
  24. Tord and Edd get ready together (EddTord) ** 
  25. Edd & Tord platonic eyehorror**
  26.  "With Tom back, so is the question, roaring at the back of your mind, and you're not entirely sure why." (Tordtryck)
  27. “You’re an artist, aren’t you?”  (Edd and Tord) *
  28. Eduardo smiles. “Just don’t tell anyone.” (Gen, Edd & Edu)* 
  29. Post - The End vent gore lmao 




	2. mini golf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an outtake from my CB project, and is basically a mini prequel to ....uhh.... what fuckin chapter is it. I think it's chapter six of this ...what ever this is? I'll put it in the chapter title. But there's a pov change so I didn't wanna put them both here. 
> 
> Basically Edd has no hands and Tord is a 'forestborn' aka dark fairy sex murder cultist. You can look at my friend Lily's drawing of forestborn Tord [here,](https://twitter.com/GrumpyBunTM/status/1041449735381499906) it's beautiful and it makes me cry every day.

Edd has learned to deal with a lot.

For instance, right now he has a pencil duct-taped to what used to be his dominant hand, because he didn’t feel like putting his prosthetic on.

For instance, right now both Matt and Tom are passed out in Edd’s bed, their usual bickering finally ceased with a little spiked liquor.

For instance, right now the rosebuds along Tord’s horns are in full bloom, their dirty eyeteeth chattering softly as the forestborn rubs Edd’s shoulders and plants a kiss behind his ear, so Edd imagines them laughing like Jimmy Durante – _hatchachachacha._

Not so unsettling now.

“Let’s go play mini-golf,” Tord whispers, kissing a bit further down Edd’s neck.

Edd can’t help but laugh; this isn’t how the story should go. The ogre or demon or dark fairy is supposed to whisk him away to their far-off castle, show them gardens of singing fruit and pools of crystal fish, give or take a closet of corpses or two.

Mini-golf?

Well, in all fairness Edd already lives in a castle, and sometimes, if he listens carefully (the kind that can only be done when one is desperate to fall asleep), he can hear the fruit trees bent over him singing off-key.

Edd lets Tord gently pull his head back, lets Tord thrum pleasantly as he nuzzles his nose behind Edd’s ear, dropping another kiss. The obsidian roots crawling up the left side of Tord’s face and neck feel like grit against Edd’s own skin, but he keeps that to himself, and instead imagines that Tord simply hasn’t shaved.

“Come on.” Tord tries to wrap his arms around Edd’s chest, but Edd bats his hands away. “It’ll be fun.”

“I dunno why you’re so adamant about this,” Edd says, for this is the third night in a row his forestborn has asked. “Last I checked, mini-golf doesn’t involve guns.”

“It can if you aren’t a coward,” Tord quips back, their gazes meeting in Edd’s claw-footed mirror. Two brown eyes, one silver, and one rose.

Well, in all fairness, he’s never played mini-golf with guns before.

And in all fairness, for how proud he is of his own ingenuity, the drawings themselves aren’t coming out up to snuff – another hour or two of cleaning up the sketches, at least.

“Alright. But grab the duct tape, because I still don’t feel like putting my hands on.”


	3. literally don't even read this one

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boys talk about porn. Wrote this back in late August. 
> 
> This one will literally leave a fucking hex on your family tree.

Edd hides his phone against his chest, steeling himself with a breath. Then, he reads, “What’s your strangest sexual fan—“

 

 

“Double penetration,” Tord and Matt chime together, clasping hands in solidarity.

 

“Actually,” Tord adds, “Why not Go a little further? I’ve been getting into triple penetration a lot more lately.”

 

“Why even stop there?” Edd asks. “Why not have one in every hole.”

 

Matt tweaks Tord’s —“ Oh yeah, two in the nose—“

 

“The ears,” Edd chirps.

 

Tord grins, shooting a look over his shoulder. “The eyes, if you can get Tom drunk enough—“

 

Tom smacks him with his magazine until Tord falls onto his side, laughing and trying to shield his face with his arms.

 

Edd, meanwhile, is doing math on his fingers. “So one in the mouth, ass, vagine, two in the nose—“

 

“Wait, why only one in each hole?” Matt asks. “I thought that’s what we were talking about.”

 

Edd blinks. “Isn’t ...it?”

 

Tord manages to pin Tom down on the bed and straddle the small of his back, fist balled in his sandy hair. “No, he means two in one hole; that’s what double penetration means.”

 

Tom frees his face, cheek still in counterpane “ I’ve seen spitroasting stuff labeled DP.”

 

“Well those people are wrong,” Tord retorts.

 

“DP is either two in one, or anal and vaginal at the same time,” Matt clarifies. “Though I’m much more preferable to the former.”

 

“Yeah,” Tord interjects, struggling to keep Tom pinned beneath him. “Matt loves getting rammed in his mussy.”

 

Matt lunges.

 

The laughter and death-threatening growls can barely be heard over Edd and Tom both screaming together in horror, “MUSSY?!?”

 


	4. this is some of the gayest shit I've ever written in my life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another CB scrap that didn't even have a place in the main line, I just felt bad about how much my boi Pat was getting shit on. 
> 
> If you haven't read OLG Tord basically has a level of mind control over Patryck and it's not fun.

“Don’t pull out your hair,” Tord commands without turning around, his voice edges with burnt honey, the beginnings of magic —enough to warn, but not to force. Yet.

 

Patryck clasps Paul’s hand so hard he feels his angry pulse. Paul kisses his knuckles, murmuring lovelies into the golden skin.

 

“You should take a flower,” Tord says as he sits down on the edge of the bed. “It’ll make you feel better.”

 

“I’ll be fine.”

 

“You had a panic attack doing yoga,” Paul injects, smoothing Patryck’s bangs out of his face. “Come on, it’s no worse than taking some aspirin for a migraine.”

 

Tords weight dips the bed, and Patryck feels the heat of him against his back, running up his arm to his shoulder. “At least let us help you,” he adds, “if you aren’t going to tell us what’s wrong.”

 

-

 

Patryck shivers as the kisses continue down his arm, down his side, over his hand and into the divot of his hip.

 

Just relax, Tord whispers on his ears — his voice dripping with burnt honey, that touch of magic that threatens force.

 

And while normally Patryck would resent it, —hey, they both want the same thing here, so Patryck pulls his hand away and wiggles his fingers. “Changed my mind, give me the flower.”

 

A moment later, Tord gently clasps his hand over Patryck’s nose and mouth, a small, periwinkle flower bud growing out of his palm, instant dissolving as it breaks against Patryck’s skin.

 

Patryck feels his body unfurl, _pinklighthappy_ warmth spreading through his body, like a cup filling with warm tea. Tord removes his hand and snuggles closer, arm over Pat’s collar bone as Pat lets out a sigh.

 

Paul smooths his hands over Pat’s side, dipping under the singlet to feel the unwinding muscles. “Feeling any better?” He asks.

 

Patryck thrums, eyes falling closed as Tord nuzzles into his neck, a giggle as he’s peppered with more light, tickling kisses.

 

One hand reaches back to card through Tord’s hair, while the other reaches out, gently motioning Paul to press their bodies flush together.

 

Paul complies, dropping a few more quick rapid fire pecks on Patryck’s cheeks as Tord slips his hand over Patryck's waist.

 

Another thrum, another fight to keep his eyes open.

 

So they quietly kiss and caress and love until they all fall asleep, and rose-wrapped vines grow around them, a cocoon of gently blooming, rosy pink.


	5. pinata

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another scrapped part of EddTord Finale, wherein Edd is cheated on by his first gf and the gang cheers him up.

“Tom, how small is my wiener?” Tord asks.

“Don’t,” the crackle on the phone.

“Tom, on a scale of one to two inches, how small is my wiener?”

 

* * *

 

"I wanna get to the looking back at this and laughing part as soon as possible."

"Well, it might help. think of it like going through a bunch of sketches -- comedy is tragedy plus time. Forgot where I heard that, but it's true."

“Mostly true."

"Mostly?"

"Yeah, comedy's tragedy plus time plus crying in the shower plus complaining about it to your friends until they get sick of you."

"Plus a few failed rebounds. "

"Plus a few failed rebounds."

"And a beheaded piñata," he picks up the multicolored horse head and absently inspects it. "Or two. Two is always an option. And we're not gonna get sick of you, Edd."

You want to make a pun, but the impulse is failing to find form as he slings an arm around your shoulders. "We're here for you, dude."

You rest your head against his chest, listening for the soft heartbeat beneath his signature scarlet hoodie. "Thanks," you murmur. You want him to say all the things you know he can't -- that he loves you, mostly, in that same soft voice your mother would, but he's not your mother and that's not how boys talk to each other, you're not going to make things weird.

As if suddenly reflecting on what you said earlier, though, he tightens his embrace and says again, _"You're more than enough for me._


	6. Chapter 6

Edd levels Tord with a look far too serious for what he’s about to say. “Do I look like the kind of motherfucker who knows what Karl Marx’s fursona is?”

 

A crooked smile, braced for a punch. “Maybe?”


	7. this is the sequel to chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay   
> so  
> the baconcola 2018 week had one prompt that was "favorite AU" and obviously who makes better AUs than me, so _originally_ this was part of ETF despite being in the CB-verse. But I realized that it was too different from the rest of ETF and I wanted to use this scene's conceit for something in arc two of CB, anyway.

   ** _“—snuppa,”_**  the forestborn’s smooth voice pulls you out of your paradise. “You might find use of these.”

You wipe your eyes on your arms and look up; the Red King holds a pair of blue flippers out to you.

The kind made for feet.

You might not have hands, but you have dignity. You knock the flippers away with your stump, and since you can’t flick off Tord off, you have to use your words: “Fuck off.”

And the mirth that normally undercuts your attempts at intimidation has its own, special edge: I’m Tired, and I’m Laughing So I Don’t Knock Your Teeth Out.

“What?” Tord asks innocently. “I’m just trying to help.”

“And I –” You push yourself off the wall of the pool, feeling cola bubble and burst along your skin, new white shirt growing heavy and probably irreparably stained –“don’t need your help.”

“You were drawing with a pen taped to your stump when I came in,” Tord reminds you, apparently missing the irony of your white John Callahan shirt entirely.

Which is funny, since he’s already revealed to you months ago that he can’t see shit out of the humongous rose he calls a left eye.

Your shirt is simple: two detached heads on blocks begging on the street corner. The fully-sighted one turns to the one with the eye-patch and says, _“People like you are a real inspiration to me!”_

It’s funny, something that happens to you almost every time your father puts you out on display, but he hadn’t agreed.

So you wear it in this cola fountain in a golf course run by monsters, under the watchful eye of a man who seems to think the fact that you don’t always feel like wearing your prosthesis (or more specifically, the ones he made for you, magic encased in metal and almost certainly more cursed than an antique doll made of old coffin wood and that openly weeps blood) means his husband and their goons knocked your IQ down a few dozen points, too.

“Yet I still draw better than you,” you throw back, letting your momentum take you under the wall of cola pouring down from the mushroom-shaped statue in the center of the pool.

“Hurtful,” he calls, the word buried by the roar of vanilla-cherry soda.

“Yeah, it was meant to be.”

“Hey now,” goes the Red King, the flowers along his antlers opening and closing like fingers deciding whether to form a fist. “I’ve taken you out, I’ve brought you someplace relatively private, I let you make a scene of yourself and dive into the cola fountain. The least you can do is be a little nicer to me.”

You’re moving over from the cherry, though, into the regular section with your head thrown back and mouth wide open.

Is it possible to orgasm emotionally? Because that’s how you feel – that, and that you might really die. If he wasn’t here – and you couldn’t hear Tom and his changeling friends somewhere deeper in the course, probably doing something that’ll get them on the government depopulation list, obviously having a blast– you’d want to.

Man, what a great way to go.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see the pile of his black coat and threadbare jeans, next to your shoes. The water ripples, but you continue to ignore him, because as much as you can tell he’s trying to be nice – guess what? You don’t owe him anything! Especially not when he’s still fucking the man who cut off your hands.

Two impulses war in your chest – to give into the pleasant atmosphere he’s trying to build around you, and to kill it, strangle it until the death rattles drain all the emotion out of his face.

You don’t owe him anything, but you also need his help.

The good news is that he’s the kind of guy who interprets hatred as “playing hard to get.” Only took twenty-years and being labeled both a cult sacrifice and a saint for you to finally figure out how stupid that trope is.

So when he steals up to you and wraps his arms around your waist, you don’t fight. You’re so used to painting on your happy face that it’s damn near impossible to crack, so you shoot him a poor clone of Matt’s coquettish smile and let him drag you under the mushroom cap.

( _smile for the camera, Edward_ ).


	8. the good omens gardening club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright so a lot of things are going on here. 
> 
> First of all, this is inspired heavily by Shalom Auslander's book Hope: A Tragedy, which is the sole reason I now write Patryck as Jewish. I needed a surname and this book is about how people sabotage their own happiness, why not use it! But that necessitated making Patryck Jewish because I mean c'mon. 
> 
> This is technically a prequel to the first chapter of ETF, and is why that chapter's setting had to be completely revamped. One of my Jewish friends said I should try to dissociate the demons from Patryck's Jewishness and what better way than to make everyone else monsters, huh? 
> 
> I have more of this verse I'll probably post. The cabbages stuff is also stolen right out of Hope: A Tragedy.

Every Sunday night, Paul and his son Tord sit down to watch an American Football game -- or, if failing to find one on TV (or if their TV is broken again, be it from some unrelated mishap or Tord kicking a ball into the screen again, or attempting to take parts out of it to combine with the toaster into a toast-dealing death machine again), they pull out some uno cards and play together, voices rising and falling with the tide of the game.

In the next house over, every Sunday night, their neighbor Patryck bakes a spinach casserole, sits it down on the floor of his first floor hallway, and shares a plate and a Dr. Pepper with the demon who lives in his closet.

They say the opening of the story is the most important part, the shaping of the lens through which our experience shall be watched. 

Vonnegut says, moreover, to start as close to the ending as one can.

So while I could open on the morning Paul decided he was going to take up gardening, or the weeks thereafter where he tilled and planted and water and failed to produce a single green thing, or the night where the demon who lives in Patryck's closet and grants wishes in exchange for spinach casserole told him the way to win his neighbor's heart was to throw whole heads of cabbage and stocks of kale over the little chain fence that separated them, instead I am going to start here, on the day Paul was late for work, having overslept, and, failing to get an answer from his go-to babysitter Laurel, dashed over to his neighbor's house and nearly threw his son through the window.

It went a little something like this:

"Mister - !" Paul's voice died in his throat, as he suddenly remembered he didn't remember (or perhaps never even caught) his neighbor's name. "Mister whatever your name is, I have a situation here! Please open the door!"

Patryck felt his chest shudder at the sentence, but he supposed he only had himself to blame for that one.

I should interrupt here and say that, for all of Paul's shortcomings as a parent, he didn't just try to drop his child into the arms of a man with whom he had so little acquaintance. He knew Patryck had no record, and further still he knew Patryck; he had quickly realized whom it was that was throwing cabbages and later still-wrapped loaves of bread into his garden, after his son had been thoroughly interrogated and found innocent (for what seven year old would ever willingly touch a cabbage, in jest or no?).

He had stayed up, as he had in his own youth to discover that Santa was his dad in not even red pajamas, the tooth fairy his mother, and watched through a pair of old army-grade binoculars Patryck step out onto his back porch in a fluffy, slutty yellow bathrobe, the untied halves fluttering in the light night breeze as he stepped up to his side of the fence and tried to lop the heads of cabbage into Paul's garden the way an un-athletic student tries to shoot hoops during the free throw test.

As in, poorly, and mostly hitting things off the rim -- in this case the rim being the picket fence of unborn tomato skeletons.  

He hadn't said anything at the time, especially not when he noticed that Patryck wasn't wearing any boxers underneath.

Instead, the next morning, when Patryck came out to sit on his back porch and watch the sunrise, as he did every morning, Paul was there in his garden, wiping the dirt off the cabbage, pouring some ranch dressing over the top, and taking a large bite, all while maintaining unblinking eye contact with his neighbor.

Patryck had blanched.

Paul was rather proud of himself, for that.

Now Patryck opens the door with his dick clothed behind a pair of gray boxers, his yellow robe on and tied with a nice, symmetrical bow on his belly button. "What's wrong? he asks, or at least tries to, before Paul is shoving Tord into Patryck's arms and trying to run off.

 _"Did you know bones can die?"_ Tord asks, excitedly, eyes wide, which make Patryck try to shove him back into his father's arms, but Paul simply says, 

"No take-backs!" 

Patryck's watches in a stunned silence as Paul practically trips down the stoop and into his car.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another cut part of ETF. I think this was the original part two (and the current part two was originally part one). I like the idea but ehhhhgfxfjcfjcn,bmnmc y'all gotta keep in mind I wrote the entire first draft of ETF in only a few hours. I'm sure I had a good reason for cutting this but I dead ass do not remember right now.

“— _sure_ about this?” Edd asks as Tord (his Tord, not the Tord climbing out of the pool, furious and electrocuted, one eye and one arm still holding onto his gun) starts pulling him back into the house.

“Of course!” his Tord says, slamming the back door behind them. “We’ll be safe if we can just get to my lab.”

“Your _lab?”_

His Tord cringes. A crooked smile. A hapless shrug. “Surprise?”

At the edge of the pool, the other Edd manages to raise himself onto his hands and vomits up water and bile, his already weatherworn face singed.

“I told you that would happen!” The other Tord unlatches some mechanisms on his crimson arm and pops it out of the socket, voice venom as he starts to beat the other Edd’s back with the limb piece of metal. “You! Fucking! _Idiot!”_  ; each punctuated with a slap.

Inside, Edd watches silently as Tord pulls pictures frames down from his wall, revealing a button that pulls said wall away.

Any lingering hopes that this was simply all a dream vanish – the cold, clinical white walls are interrupted by posters of bikini-clad girls being fondled by tentacles, the floor dotted with wrappers and dirty socks and shredded papers, the four computer monitors instantly booting up as they enter the room, revealing the house’s interior and exterior from a multitude of angles.

On the furthermost wall, Edd spots blueprints for a black-eyed cyclops

and a time machine. A wristwatch for convenience.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Edd asks, voice far away and far, far too soft for his Tord’s liking.

Tord wants nothing more than to cradle his boyfriend in his arms, whisper against his skin, but he has work to do. “It never seemed like a good time,” he says as he starts hammering his presses a few buttons on his control panel.

From the ceiling a tube protracts, fitting Tord with his old army pickelhaube with an assembly-line vacuum press.

“Want one?” Tord asks, forcing on a smile.

Edd crosses his arms, trying to look serious, before a laugh can’t help but bubble out past his lips. “What kind of hat?”

Tord grabs his wrists and pulls him underneath the tube, fitting him with a brass merryweather fireman’s helmet, stickers of bands and a post-it with a dick doodle covering the old Victorian coat of arms.

“How does it look?” Edd asks, adjusting it so the brim doesn’t cover his eyes.

“Like the epitome of sexual performance.” Tord smiles, before his face falls and his cups Edd’s soft face in both of his warm, calloused hands. “You know I love you, right?”

Edd slips his hand over Tord’s, brown eyes far away. “For how long, though?”

A flash of hurt in those deep silver eyes. Tord grits his teeth. “Listen – time travel is bullshit. We’ve known –”

“We’ve?”

“Physicists. Scientists. Fucking crazy weirdos like me. Going back in time in your own timeline isn’t possible, not without creating a million paradoxes and collapsing the whole space-time continuum like Matt’s self-esteem when he thinks we’re ignoring him.”

He expects Edd to laugh, or even crack a tiny smile, but no cigar.

“Listen,” he says, a touch of desperation that wasn’t there before swimming under his voice. “Point is: those aren’t from our future. They’re from the future of a different timeline.”

Which is a lie – or at least an unconfirmed possible truth. But he’ll say anything to wipe that apprehensive look off Edd’s face.

“Whatever happened to make those us’s want to kill each other has nothing to do with us.”

“What if it does, though?” Edd asks. “What if in this timeline everything that happened to them happens to us, and the only thing that’s different is our hats, or whatever?”

Tord doesn’t know what to say, so he kisses Edd instead.

Edd relaxes into it, deepens it, holding Tord’s head in place until he’s sure his Edd is bruising him. “Though it’s really your lose either way,” Edd murmurs against Tord’s lips. “You’re never gonna find someone with a dick bigger than mine.”

Tord snorts and pushes him away. “That’s true, but also besides the point.”

He turns back to the control panel, tapping a few more buttons which raise a platform out of the floor, a chair in its center. “We’re gonna have to squeeze,” Tord says as a set of controls raising in front of the chair – handlebars with buttons at their top. “So do you wanna be player one, or just watch?”

“Watch what?” Edd asks. “What is this?”

“A turrent.”

Edd muses for a moment, before taking his seat. “Player one.”


	10. sappy paupat bullshit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this to comfort myself at like 2 am some X number of months ago. Originally was going to revise this into the tautly-written and poignant masterpiece that would catapult me into the superstardom I so richly deserve, but fuck it. I mean I might still one day, and I'd intended to upload both versions anyway just because I personally like comparing two versions of a story that undergoes massive changes, but whatever.
> 
> this is bad but you'll like it anyway

_Ssssh, ssshhh ,_ Paul’s low voice in his hair, soft as the hands that run down his sides are calloused. You’re safe. It’s alright.    
  
Patryck curls so far inward he feels his guts ache, his back strain, scalp a dull burn as he tugs at his hair.    
  
He doesn’t want to cry, as he usually does. No, he wants to beat himself black and blue, punch the wall, ask Paul to bare his teeth and rip out chunks.    
  
Because he should be fucking over it by now.    
  
(But how do you move on, when you don’t even know what it is?)   
  
Eventually Paul manages to coax the comforter away from Patryck’s frame, kissing gently, hesitantly across Pat’s shoulder blades.   
  
He can feel Pat’s bones beneath his skin. See his ribs, place his finger in the valley between bones and feel its groove.    
  
But the words die on his tongue. Have you been eating? Did I hurt you? What is it why won’t you tell me it’s me isn’t it I’m —    
  
_ —worried about you, Pat. _   
  
“I’ll be fine.” He doesn’t look up.   
  
Paul wraps his arms around Pat’s chest, pulling him up to press him flush against his own chest. _You don’t seem fine._ But at least he isn’t crying (quiet but shaking, deep gasping sobs but only for a short time, only for a minute or two, as though an alien performing it on stage in a way that unnerves Paul more than if he had wept for hours).   
  
Patryck sighs out a lung full of lead, let’s himself fall heavy back against Paul’s larger body, fingers spreading down Paul’s arm to find his hand. “Just give me a few more minutes.”   
  
A kiss on the side of his throat. _Alright._   
  
“I’m sorry.”

  
_Oh, babe, don’t be sorry._ A few more kisses, traveling up to his jaw and reaching its apex behind his ear. _I just don’t wanna hurt you._   
  
Patryck intertwines their fingers.    
  
"I don’t deserve you." A soft breath, a sigh of defeat.    
  
_ You do, you do, you do. _   
  
More kisses, a hand on his jaw, pulling golden eyes to meet brown. _You deserve everything, Patryck Auslander._   
  
And Patryck cries, and Paul holds him, and eventually when Patryck cries himself out they fall asleep, curled together, as close as their naked flesh could allow them to be, dreaming of their roots growing together like trees until they calcify.    
  



	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically I have a huge word doc full of 8k+ Tord/Paul/Pat scraps, and the idea was that I was gonna order them in such a way that forms a loose narrative and explores the way I write these characters. I've become obsessed with stories that are made of independent parts that form deeper, more complex meanings when considered as a whole, and while ETF is my temple to that idea, this was/is gonna be a shrine.

"One day he's going to stop believing you, you know."

Patryck turns around to face Red Leader, slumped in his recliner and playing idly with a pencil, the room still smelling of blood. Strongly.

Oh well, better than it reeking of bleach.

Patryck feels the words coil in his chest, but he shrugs and slips the thick file of documents back under his arm. "We'll deal with it when we get to it."

Red Leader doesn't look up. "Which is going to be sooner rather than later." He sighs -- though from what is hard to decipher -- and stands, making his way past Patryck with only a lingering touch on the other man's shoulder as his gloved hand encircles the door knob.

"Up to you whether to come to my room tonight." A glint of his good silver eye thrown over his own shoulder, a languid smile. "Though of course I'll miss your presence dearly."

Patryck can't help his reaction: "Oh, blow me."

Red Leader's laughter echoes throughout his comparatively-small office like screams off dark cave walls.

And Patryck finds himself feeling like he's no more to either of them than a pretty bird in a cage.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Roller Skate Twink is code for Patryck, based on this one time I saw a guy in hot pink and black skates squatting besides a car while out in the hipster part of my city. I think about him often. Is this enough for a missed connections post?

“There he is!”

“Oh, he’s cute,” Edd notes rather absentmindedly, as though reading a byline off the news. “Gonna go talk to him?”

“I – I can’t – I mean –” Tord bites down on his knuckle and leans back over the brick edge, watching Roller Skate Twink take another sip of his coffee as he swipes up on his phone. “I don’t wanna be annoying.”

Matt grips Tord by the shoulder, a comforting hand that makes him nearly jump out his skin. “Just ask “Hey, is this seat taken? And if he doesn’t wanna talk to people he’ll say no. You come back, no harm, no foul, it’s probably nothing to do with you.”

“He’s wearing the skates,” Edd adds. “Better go now – he gets up you’re not gonna catch up to him.”

“Matt, give me some of your big slut energy,” Tord says, grabbing Matt’s hand and patting his cheek with it.  Matt smears his hands over Tord’s face briefly, before his eyes widen and he gropes in his pockets for –

“Here, let’s gel down your hair right quick—”

“He looked over here,” Edd says, which make Tord squeak and nearly wrench himself free of Matt’s grasp, but Edd grabs hold of him long enough for Matt to finish smoothly his hair back into a glossy pompadour.

“Go get em, tiger.”

Tord nearly loses his stomach when he see how close to finished Roller Skate Twink is with his drink, but he takes a deep breath -- and stumbles forward, thanks to Matt's approving shove. 


	13. this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever written in my entire life I am not exaggerating in the slightest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So almost a year ago my friends and I had three days of debate over the hottest way to be murdered. I've made some progress a few times on recapturing the feel of it, including rewriting this exact part in a script format (since it's 97% dialogue anyway), but whatever. Eat the hell.

"Pat, what's yours?" Red Leader asks, turning to the pilot in question.

Pat runs a hand over his cheek. "Uhhh....I'd have to say being stomped to death."

Red Leader purses his lips. "Very rugged. I like it." He writes it up on the board. "Yuu, go."

"GUILLOTINE!"

"Okay," Pat chimes. "But it's gotta be timed just right, so while you're jacking off the blade comes down and kills you the moment you nut."

"That's why they call you the minute man," Paul says with a lecherous grin. Patryck elbows him and says nothing.

"He has a point though," goes Red Leader as he scrawls his marker across the board. 

Suddenly the door slides open, and three figures enter -- two ramrod straight, one slumped down between them, held up by their shoulders.

Tom, Edd and Matt.

Edd's eyes widen as he takes in the list of tortures on the board: _waterboarding, car compactor, fucked to death, medieval torture, heart ripped out and eaten..._

Tom sinks his knee into Edd's stomach as he starts to thrash anew, all three men cursing under their breaths.

"I'll never talk!" Edd shouts. "No matter what you do to me, I don't care, I---"

"Oh, this?" Red Leader asks casually, indicating the board. "Oh, pfft, this isn't about you, Edd."

The men raise their eyebrows -- well, Tom doesn't, but the green question marks flashing across his visor say the same.

"No no no," continues Red Leader. "We're simply compiling a list of the hottest ways to be murdered."

Matt groans. "You're still on that?"

The question marks rolling across Tom's visor now have added exclamation points. "What the hell do you mean, _still on?"_ he asks.

"Have you really forgotten how much of a freak Matt is, Tom?" Red Leader asks, which causes the rest of the room to laugh and share their agreement.

Red Leader pulls the cap off the marker again with a loud pop. "Matt, what was yours again?"

"Throat slit," the answer rolls off his tongue. "What? Don't give me that look, Tom. It's a classic! And more importantly it doesn't mess with the face."

"Like that --" Edd's words are cut off by another knee to his stomach.

"Tom, what's yours?" Red Leader asks, ignoring Edd's groans of pain.

"What about me?" yanov asks. "I haven't gone yet."

"Godzilla dick, yes, I know."

"It's not just Godzilla's dick."

"'Ballerina that dick when I spin,'" Patryck cuts in. "Yes, we all know."

"I think "throw that ass back on a tricycle" is a better line, honestly," Paul says to no one in particular.

"I'm not a part of this," Tom interjects sternly, visor returning to its standard green LED glare.

"Oh come on, Tom!" Red Leader chides. "Don't be such a spoilsport. Give us something."

After a few moments of intense eye connection, Tom looses a heavy sigh. "Strangulation."

The room is quiet. Finally, Red Leader scrunches his nose up. "...Okay," he says finally.

"What's with the hesitation?" tom asks.

"I dunno," Red Leader says carefully, "it's a little...underwhelming?"

"It's intimate!" Tom snaps back.

"Yes, but it's not very _creative,"_ Red clarifies. "Anyone can strangle you --"

"Anyone can cut your throat, too."

"Yes, but they're also taking Matt's aesthetic concerns into consideration. I want something that shows you put thought and effort into it, because I'm worth it." Before Tom can reply to that, his leader turns his good eye back, finally, to their new captive. "Edd, anything you wanna add?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"Later, Edward. We're focusing on this now."

Edd glares, lips a thin line, but finally he says, "Getting fucked from behind while the person dunks my head in a tub of cola, pulling me up just before I pass out and then putting me back under again until I can't take it anymore."

His good eye lights up. "Nice one, old friend!" Red Leader leans down, running his fingertips over Edd’s jawline. “And I can make it hap--"

Edd spits in his face.

After about fifteen minutes, Edd is a bloody heap on the floor, and Red Leader pulls a handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing sweat and blood splatter from his brow. Tom and Matt pull Edd up again by his under-arms, eliciting another low groan of pain.

“Alright,” Red Leader announces, “I think we’ve gotten the opinions of everyone who matters.”

Through sweat-damp bangs, Edd notices that his old friend has quickly scribbled on his suggestion to the list.

“I feel like we could go one step further, though,” Patryck says, hands together and pressed to his lips. “This feels like it needs to be one of those bear/twink/hunk triangles.”

Red Leader furrows his eyebrows.

“You don’t know what I’m talking about?” Patryck asks.

“I think I do, but only vaguely. And I certainly don’t know what goes inside.”

“Twenty years being a professional polesmoker –”

“Fuck off,” Red Leader says with a smile.

“—and you don’t know how to fill in a bear / twink triangle?”

“I honestly don’t remember, because the last time I saw the full triangle it was with Paw Patrol characters, so—“

“What fucking websites do you go to?” Patryck asks.

Red Leader shrugs helplessly. “I wasn’t looking at Paw Patrol hentai, if that’s what you’re asking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red Leader raises his hand for Tom to hit back, but Tom merely stands there, visor unchanging.  
> “Oh come on now,” Red Leader says.  
> Edd takes his chance. “I’ll high five you,” as he takes his arm out of Tom’s hold. Their hands about touch, before Edd suddenly yanks himself away.  
> “SIKE!!”  
> Matt falls back as Edd shoulders him into the wall, scrambling down the hall at the fastest any of the three former friends have ever seen him run.  
> Red Leader blinks.  
> “Well don’t just stand there!” He shouts at Tom and Matt. “Go get him!”


	14. Chapter 14

“I’ve decided I’m gonna use it when you’re on your death bed. If your last word on this mortal plane is not 'daddy' than what was even the point, honestly?”

 

“I’ll will myself back to life -“

 

“Like in Sword Art Online?”

 

“Yeah, exactly- I’ll will myself back to life like in SAO just to tell you to fuck off. Then I’ll die permanently.”

 

“Why not save yourself some trouble and combine them - Fuck, off , Daddy."

 

“But Daddy is still the last word I said alive.”

 

Tord purses his lips, looking up the man whose lap he's currently laying in. “That is true, I suppose.”


	15. this is the other gayest shit I've ever written in my life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was originally like 1.5k I cranked out at like 1 am since the ending of the CB AU for these characters made me really sad, as if I wasn't the one writing it. Edited out the more overt references so one of my friends who complains endlessly about how I only write edgy abusive bullshit would shut up, and now here you have it. It's not canon to CB anymore anyway.

When Paul is 53, he dies.    
  
It goes like this :

He wakes up.

The air is warm, a pleasant breeze whistling a tune in his ears. grass. He's lying on grass, even in death grass is itchy to lie down on for too long. He sits up, the action causing his blood to rush, and he swoons for a moment.

The sun is shining into his eyes, golden knives.

Nehind him, a voice  --

no, it can't, it can't be  ---

"Paulie!" Patryck shouts, as though no time has passed at all. "What took you so long?"

* * *

Patryck's weight is a welcome burden on his chest; Paul takes Patryck shifting himself as opportunity to snuggle closer, pull the smaller man closer into his arms, kissing along his cheek bone. Patryck thrums in delight, allowing him, tilting his head back to give access to his neck and the rest of his face.

their legs tangled together, bodies pressed, the sun shining...god, he could die all over again for this. anything to keep this moment forever.

He won't say a word though, won't remind the wizard to step out behind the curtain and prove it's not real. 

"I'm sorry," Patryck says eventually. "About a lot of things. I did you a lot of wrong."

"And I didn't listen to you. I only saw what I wanted to."

"I let you hurt yourself. I took my anger out on you. I liked it.  I was awful to you."

"And I wanted someone to be awful."

Patryck sighs. "I suppose we have a long time to get into couples therapy."

Paul smiles and kisses his nose. "Can it wait? It's been too long since I've gotten to just look at you."

Brown eyes meet mirrors, and Patryck returns the smile. "I couldn't agree more."

Shoves him down, muffling Paul's laughter with a deep, passionate kiss.

* * *

 

Paul says nothing, takes a drink, eyes mapping the lines of the cobblestone floor.

"There's a lot I haven't forgiven him for," Patryck says, any way. "A lot I may never. You know me. And even if I did, I don't think we could ever go back to the way we were." He gives another heavy sigh, one that drains the marrow from his bones, and sets his tea cup down carefully in its little plate on the edge of the wire table. "But if you want to see him should he ever reappear, I will not stop you. I won't be mad at you. But I don't wish to see him, so please don't ask me to."

Paul  finds himself deeply fascinated by the floor. he didn’t know there were beetles in heaven.

* * *

 

They open up a little bookstop. Paul doesn't like doing much work with the customers, he fumbles over his words too much, hasn't really sat down and read in many, many years, so he does little things: fixing old pipes, building tables, staining new bookshelves whenever Patryck has an idea for a new color-coded display.

They make enough money, not that much is needed here-- there's plenty of food to eat, a nice little house for everyone tailored to their specific needs and desires, and if you look closely, red orbs in the sky, watching over them. Paul has only seen them up close when someone tried to pick a fight with, presumably, someone whom they recognized from their past live, whereupon the red orbs came down, held him in their tractor beam gaze, and deposited him outside the city gates for a day.

Nothing bad happened to him, at least nothing that he would say. But the humiliation of a cosmic time-out seemed to have done its trick.

Paul, meanwhile, is a very simple man, with very simple needs. 

Like the way P atryck chats for hours with the customers if you let him, smiles wider than Paul has seen in years, laughs louder and longer. Like how now Pat sleeps easy, curled against Paul's side, head over Paul's heart.

ba dum, ba dum, ba dum.

Paul keeps his hand over patryck's shoulder blades, feeling the beat underneath his fingertips.

ka thump, ka thump, ka thump.

Paul sleeps a lot better now, too.

* * *

He has everything he needs.

almost.

* * *

One morning, off in the distance, Paul spots two figures, red and blue, side by side, hand in hand, walking towards their little house in the outskirts of the nicest neighborhood in heaven.

Paul tackles them both to the ground.

Patryck is close behind, hugs tom, kisses his cheeks, and then levels Tord with a look cold and far, far away, a million emotions Paul can't pretend he knows anymore spiraling in their depths.

Tord holds his gaze and offers a crooked, apologetic smile.

Finally, Patryck's stone face cracks, and he reaches out a hand.

Tord takes it, but when Patryck helps him up, he also sticks his foot out so that Tord almost trips.

Almost.

Instead Tord twists his body around mid-fall and takes Patryck down with him, the taller man cushioning his fall, and after a tortured silence, Patryck and Tord's voices join in laughter for the first time in almost a decade. 

Even eternity is too short to be holding grudges, Paul thinks, but he doesn't say anything as Pat makes Tord sleep on the sofa those first few years while Tom gets the guest bedroom, and Tord doesn't either.  

Paul is a simple man, after all. If they can find this good enough, so can he.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I'm just uploading some excerpts from CB I've already posted to my blog months ago. This and the next snippet are both from Tom's chapter.

“Wait, wait, wait  –” Tom’s gaze whips, around finding his pants, sans belt, pooled at the foot of the mattress. “You guys took off my charms?”

“You took off your charms,” his forestborn says. “You said, and I quote, “I am zero percent bitch” and threw it at me. Nearly set me and the whole fucking projector on fire.”

“Sorry. But why would I take off my charms?”

“You wanted to get your dick pierced,” Paul says bluntly.

“I – what?” Tom pulls the band of his boxers forward and lets out a shriek.

Everyone else laughs. “You also wanted to use bullets, but Pat talked me out of letting you do that,” his forestborn says.

“And getting the full Jacob’s ladder,” Pat adds. “You can thank me for that later.”

“But you didn’t cry,” Paul notes, “so you get to keep the ten bucks Pat and I gave you for snacks.”


	17. Tom and a friend behead a mutated deer

 There’s a chill in the air. He briefly considers running back for his hoodie, but there’s a bonfire before him, framing Coxinga’s bulking form in red and orange. This can’t be the bonfire Pat and Paul have described in their visions, for Tom doesn’t feel that screaming in his blood, the kind that made them have to be held back when it was loud enough.

But it’s coming, Tom knows. The great bonfire, and the house thatched with bones.

* * *

 

“Hey Cox,” Tom says, holding out his phone as he positions the reindeer’s slack mouth over his crotch. “Come take a picture.”

 


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit from Edd's chapter of the CB AU I was gonna have to take out anyway because I decided to write it in Edu's pov for no reason. :P

Then, after a moment: “You’re genuinely trying to be nice to me,” Edd says, voice too amazed, smile too wide for his brother’s liking, and even it’s making Edd himself a little sad, underneath it all.

Eduardo smiles. “Just don’t tell anyone.”

* * *

There’s – well, it’s not a stable, not really, because it lacks all the details and innards, as though merely an outline of a stable done from memory. But it’s nearby and the hay bales are in a nice position to watch the stars from, so there they go to eat, regular and diet coke, store-bought cookies slightly microwaved until chewy. Nothing special, nothing princely.

Maybe Eduardo and he have more in common than Edd thinks.

Him and his brother discuss the stars, drawing new constellations, arguing over the locations of old ones, making terrible puns and sharing soft punches. When Edd feels his eyes start to droop, he thinks nothing of it, nor of Eduardo’s insistence that he’s not hungry, have all the cookies you want.

It’s your birthday, after all.

When Eduardo is sure he’s asleep, he binds his wrists and ankles with rope hidden in the hay, then easily hefts his brother up and dumps him into one of the wheelbarrows.

What did Alice say as she contemplated going into the Wood?

 _“I wonder what’ll become of my name when I go in?”_ She went. _“I shouldn’t like to lose it at all – because they’d have to give me another, and it would almost be certain to be an ugly one.”_

Well, the name ‘Eduardo’ can taste like dirty glass and shit in his half-brother’s mouth, for all he cares.


	19. Hey Tom/Tords this is the one you're looking for

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically this is Tom/Tord but sssh don't tell Charlene I said that she won't already let me see the kids
> 
> Ooc? Probably. Does anyone care? No. Honestly any TomTord fic that doesn't fit to nouns' "serious japanther breakup song" ...wyd

You fall asleep with his arm clutched to your chest.  
  
When you awake, he’s standing over you, not saying a word.  
  
Until: “Can I have my arm back?”  
  
It takes a moment for the gears in your hazy, aching brain to click, but you realize you’ve kept his arm from charging through the night.  
  
So you say: “I’m sorry.”  
  
And you say: “I was really drunk last night.”  
  
And you say: “Won’t happen again. Promise.”  
  
He only lets out a sigh, his good arm dangling by his side, fist clenched.  
  
His rage you can deal with; his disappointment you can’t.  
  
You feel the urge to snap boiling up your throat, but he interrupts you with another, heavier sigh. "Just give it here, Tom.”


	20. TomEdd gang where you at

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of a project that probably won't be published because it has no interest to anyone but me, lol. Needless to say this is the only part is that isn't either a) garbage or b) nightmare fuel. A/B/O but y'all already know how I feel about that. If you think this project is anything but a horror-comedy you're kidding yourself. 
> 
> Context: the boys have been making fun of Tom for making yellow-tinted movies. Tom gets pressed. Technically I wrote this today but the beef which inspired it started in 2018 so

"Ready for tomorrow?" Tom asks, his hand sliding Edd's bangs back, prompting Edd to loll his head back onto Tom's shoulder. He can still smell Tord clinging to both their skins, but so close the vodka and dark, bitter chocolate is easily the stronger power.

" _You_ certainly are." 

Tom makes a small, noncommittal sound and presses his lips against Edd's scent gland. Edd had claimed him too, when they had fought across the whole house and left it all as if a hurricane had passed through, and even though Tom had grumbled for weeks about how he should have been Head Alpha, he can't deny the comfort in Edd's smell.

Edd smells like brown sugar and sleepovers. Edd smells like home.

Well that was fucking gay.

Edd cocks his head, shit-eating smile. "At least you wont have to see any more yellow lighting after tomorrow."

Tom rips himself away. "At least I won't have to deal with you shit-wits, that's for sure."

"You'll finally be free."

"Yeah, I will."

"But what if Heaven is yellow?"

Tom quits to the door, lingers. "Then I'm going to kill myself and not even God can stop me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Elissa what's good


	21. Chapter 21

The man in the black coat taps furiously on his wrist, but it only beeps louder and louder, until it breaks with a cloud of springs and dust and wires.

He curses under his breath, to which Scribble replies, “At least we’re stuck in here together.”

The man grimaces and says, “Yeah, I’m just so excited for _Donner Party 2: Electric Boogaloo.”_

* * *

Scribble has to bury his laughter as this future Edd constantly interjects his reading with _what the hell is he on about_ s, until finally he finds the rhythm, nodding along as he reads the ending: “ _That’s where I’d go, if I could go, that’s who I’d be, if I could be_.  Well, I’ll pretend to know what any of that meant,” as he tosses the small booklet across the floor.

“I think I know what it means,” to which the future Edd raises an eyebrow, so Scribble continues: “He thinks he should be happy living regular life, but books remind him that real life’s actually really boring.”

The future Edd peruses his lips. “Can’t really relate; regular life has always been too much for me – but it’s better than nothing, I suppose,” to which  Scribble has to nod. Better to be a freak than to never have any control over anybody at all.

* * *

Scribble watches the birds outside his window in their new quaint little house, feeling some implacable expansion in his chest, as though a door is being opened.

The bird falls— it is a baby learning how to fly, after all, and Scribble jumps, fingernails digging deep ruts into the wood of the windowsill, only relaxing once he sees the mama bird swoop down and check for injuries.

Scribbles realizes what he’s feeling with a smile: bitter, burning, jealousy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is from a ficlet collection I started after dipping my toes into the [3 Sentence Fic-A-Thon,](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17048567) and I do want to finish it now that I'm reading over it, but recent circumstances have also really damaged my creative channel, as it were, so if I do end up posting the full thing I'll delete this chapter. I don't want to leave fanfic with so much of it just rotting on my hard-drive, ya feel me. 
> 
> I picked these three because I think the give an interesting (if still incomplete) portrait of how I view Scribble Tom. The text quoted is Samuel Beckett's texts for nothing #4; Patryck gave it to them lol. You can find it online if you want but it is a difficult text to parse. Let me know what you think!


	22. where am I (Tom & Tord)

“These things take time, Tom; you must be patient.”

Tom breaks the glass he’d been holding.

To which Tord simply smiles. “Of course, we could always circumvent this by cutting your balls off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if that train comes by again I'm gonna go absolutely feral


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Red Army Experiments On Paul And Not Tom AU aka PauPat fluff. Because I'm the most predictable person who's ever lived on this bitch of an earth.
> 
> What's your brain chart like? Mine's cheese dip, yin yang yo, and crying myself to sleep

"Paul's brain, as you can see," Red Leader goes on, pointing to the first of two charts, "is split pretty cleanly between loving you, wrestling, and Mexican food." He steps back, revealing another scan, the yellow portion devouring the other two like a Mr. Pac-Man. "Now it's pretty much just you. We haven't told him you're here yet, so we have no idea how he's gonna react to seeing you."

"You haven't told him?"

"Yuu caught him fucking crying last night when he went to serve him dinner!"

You stiffen. "Paul doesn't cry."

"I know! His hormones are out of whack, Pat."

It's all you can do to not throttle him. He takes the prints down, sliding them back into the file. "So stay away from the window for right now. We'll re-introduce you two after we -- hey!"

Of course you've already made your way back to the glass, pressing your hand flat against it. The blob of pink they're calling Paul has already begun to stir, his large body sluggish as he pushes himself up onto his arms.

Then those brown eyes meet yours.

 _Thunk_!

He slams himself against the glass, almost too fast for you to see. One of his eyes has been engulked by new, blotchy skin, cow-like ears perked up, thick tail thumping loudly against the ground.

He raises a hand like a sock filled with sand to the glass. 

"Get back here!" Red snaps, yanking you away by the arm.

You both jump back as the door to the lab suddenly dents, and you hear him shuffling back, readying himself for another slam. Red pushes you in front of him, stepping back until he's pressed small against the wall.

It only takes one more slam for the door to burst off its hinges, bouncing off the wall and taking a control panel with it.

Paul quickly scoops you up into his arms, peppering your face with big, sloppy kisses. His tongue is like sandpaper now, but you endure it, trying not to cringe away as you feel his claws poke through your heavy sweaters and leather. 

Retractable. Nice. 

He's squeezing too hard.

You whisper, hoping the strain in your voice isn't prevalent, "I missed you too, darling."

Harder, bones popping, his wet nose nuzzling into the place where neck becomes collar with a loud, happy purr. 

"Mine." His voice darker and gravelly through disuse, but so unmistakably Paul. "All mine."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was kidding my actual brain chart is just yin yang yo and every bad piece of content that's ever and will ever exist. Why do you think I make so much of it myself?


	24. Chapter 24

“Good luck with your necrophilia,” Tom slurs as you work the shopping cart’s wheels over the threshold, the front door of your little house propped open by the jaw of knives and shotgun barrels that now form the grill of the cart’s race car frame. “Don’t rot your dick off, or…whatever.” He rolls on the coach, probably already falling back asleep.

“Thanks mom,” You reply anyway, “I will.”

The zombie lying fetal in the basket stirs briefly, before nuzzling his head into his sleeve and settling down again. Once you’ve shove him through the door and shot the mailman weakly trying to leave his rotting jawbone into your mailbox, you reach down and run your fingers through his hair.

Careful, or more will come out.

It’s a lovely sunrise, the birds singing pleasant chimes, the clouds painted with such a broad golden brush that you can see the strokes along their bellies. You think of waking him, decide against it. Let him get his sleep. Besides, it’ll ruin the surprise.

Not that it matters much – the sidewalks have gone to such shit that even your leisurely pace sounds like you’ve thrown the cart into a tumble dryer, and too soon the sun is up high, microwaving you alive in your T-shirt and swimming trunks.

He throws an arm over his face and groans, earning your hand in his hair again, trying to soothe him. “Almost there, buddy,” you say, retracting your hand only to pistol-whip the girl scout who’s gotten too close to your legs.

“Edd?” Tord asks, voice still thick with sleep. “Where are we?”

“We’re almost there,” you reply. He’s starting to prop himself up on his elbows, so you reach into your hoodie and grab the plastic baggie that had been lying under your gun.

“Just tell me what’s—” His sentence sputters out as you drop the bag onto his face; you can’t see his face as he sits up and pries it open, but you know he’s smiling as he wafts in the greasy smell.

“Oh, _awesome,”_ Tord practically moans as he shoves a handful of bacon into his mouth, and you roll your eyes.

“Don’t splooge everywhere, please,” you chide, a tiny smile on your face. “You know I hate cleaning this thing.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” is his mouthful response, “ ‘cause you don’t.” The cart is so coated with dried blood it looks more rust than metal.

“Exactly,” you reply. “So don’t cream yourself and I won’t have to start.”

“I wouldn’t cream myself so easily if you were better at –”

Here you shove his hood over his face. “Go back to sleep.”

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” He asks.

“That’ll ruin the surprise.”

He raises a jade finger to his empty socket. “Tell me or I’ll spray you.”

Recently Tord has discovered (much to Tom’s disgust-cum-rage) that if he jabs into what’s left of his caruncula, he can spurt blood like an acid-spitting lizard.

You tap your chest and offer it up for target practice. “Do it pussy.”  Before he can, however, you smack him upside the head and try to shove him back down into the cart.

“Let me up! Fight me, coward!” He’s yelling, but it’s so choked with laughter he can’t put up much of a resistance.

Suddenly one of his arms snaps at the joint, and Tord’s face-plants into the side of the cart, skin open cutting on zip ties. Blood -- thick, congealed sludge, like curdled milk or tar – slowly drags down his cheeks. “Ow.”

“You alright?”

“Do you have the duct tape?”

You reach into your back pocket and feel around. “Uhhh…” You retrieve the tiny tape dispenser and hold it out sheepishly. “Masking tape.”

He sighs, and takes it in his mouth, speaking around it as he pulls out a long stripe. “I guess it’ll work.”

The birds are chirping, the sun is out, and you’re picking up your pace, because with this heat the zombies are gonna start exploding like overfull water balloons and you forgot your umbrella. Tord settles down to repair himself, and you two make only small talk until –

“Do you still dream?”

“Only occasionally,” he says, trying to hide the half-full bag of bacon in his hoodie pocket when he thinks you won’t notice. You hardly hear his next words as you try loudly not think of what that means. “But I never dreamed very often, anyway. The only thing that’s changed is the content.”

“To what?” You ask.

“Remember how in _Hellraiser,_ Julia helped Frank regrow his skin by bringing him people to kill? Take that, but with us.”

You make a little noise of acknowledgement, and then don’t say anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another excerpt from ETF, this time the revised opening of the first version of part two, back when part two was part one, lol. This was supposed to fill the 'beach' prompt of BaconCola Week. Part two is currently sitting at 12k words and in editing hell. I don't know if I've said this on here yet, but ETF is gonna be my last fic, so I want it to be good.


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another little excerpt from part two - currently thinking I'll cut this, but maybe I won't, we'll see. 
> 
> It's coming along. You could definitely use those words to describe it. 
> 
> Lol. Enjoy!

It’s Friday, so you’re going to _Rocky Horror._ It’s not a weekly occasion the way it is for some, because you like it to be special, but you’re gotten the itch for some good ole nostalgic chaos and you’re finally in a place to indulge.

Tord is drawing a heart over your left eye with lipstick you’d never regularly admit you own, a deep red shade. It feels heavy in your lid, but his fingers are heavier, the touch lingering on your skin, and you have to force your hands to stay on the floor and not rub it in deeper. 

“How’s it looking?” You ask, focusing too on keeping your eyes closed as the oily stick runs over your lid and brow. His other "hand" readjusts, brushing your hair out of the way again, the rough plastic chaffing against you. 

“Good,” he says, faraway. You imagine his tongue is poking out of the corner of his lips, the way it does when he's really lost in his drawing and not just slapping basketball tits on something of yours. His fingers are so cold it raises goosebumps along your neck. 

A sudden thought, beamed into your brain by aliens (yes, aliens, hush, and don’t dare speak it aloud): Tord taking a little red on his lips and pressing them on your cheek, leaving a mark, smearing it with his thumb as you look up at him, finally opening your eyes.

Gross.

You want to ask him but you don’t.

 _“Aaaand_ done!” He says, rocking back onto his haunches. You open your eyes and watch him cap the lipstick, his lips clean, before grabbing one of Matt's old hand mirrors and holding it up for your scrutiny. “How’s it look, chief?”

You look.

He hasn't gotten dressed yet, aside from the wide-brimmed, feathered pirate hat he'd snatched on your last supplies run and has refused to take off since, right eye ran through with an old empty pen. His skin is looking a little greener than yesterday - you're gonna need to really cake the makeup and powders and spray on him today.

_("just use the acrylic spray--"_

_"for the last time,_ no." _)_

You almost laugh. He's smiling at you - close-lipped, because he's always been self-conscious about his teeth. His lips are cracked and cut and pallid from the lack of circulation. 

You'd smile if you could stand to let him think you care. "Looks great.”


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another excerpt from Part Two! It's been really hard trying to wrangle all 15k+ into a semi-chronological narrative, much less pushing past my own mental hangups, but we're getting there. Part two is definitely gonna have the most outtakes (the new draft is down to 52 pages from 63), so be ready.
> 
> Warning for eye horror.

“Hey Edd, look!”

You turn your head just enough to watch him swing his eyeball back and forth from the optic nerve like a movie hypnotist.  _“You are getting veeerrrrry sleepy_ ,” he drawls, though his inflection is closer to Count Dracula. “Oh god, this is making me dizzy,” with a light laugh.

“Tord,” you say. "Quit swinging that thing around.” It’s too close to your face and glistens in the light of your desk lamp, yellow and bloodshot. “It’s distracting me.” You were just getting into the flow, so you turn your head back, still hearing the slight ‘whoosh’ sound of its oscillations. 

“From what, your animations?”

You flip him off, but that just makes it smack against your hand, the impact somehow sounding wetter than it feels. You grab the nerve and suddenly all the tension is gone from it. Something thin and rubbery is laid across your knuckles. “Oh crap, sorry.”

Tord rolls the other eye, yanks it out of your hand as he pulls open your drawer and takes out your roll of gray duct tape. “Oh, it’s fine," under his breath as you help him cut off a small square piece. He repairs the break, stuffing the eye back in its socket, pushing the folded nerve underneath it in a way that makes you have to glance anywhere else. 

“Can you see out of it?”

“Yeah, who knew the optic nerve was useless this whole time?”

“Really?” You ask.

He smacks you upside your head. “No, you idiot!”

“Well fuck me for asking!”

“Yeah, fuck you for ripping out my eye.”

“Peally you did that.”

“No, I popped it out. Accidentally.”

“And I ripped it out accidentally, because you were swinging it around.”

“Would you have preferred I walk in here with my junk swinging out instead?”

You take a moment to consider, tapping your pencil eraser against your bottom lip. “Yes. At least then I wouldn’t have even noticed anything out of ordinary."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, figured I may as well mention it here; anyone looking for more Rejects stuff should check out my fic [melty future](https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13214130/1/melty-future) on ffn. Will I post it here? Who knows. Why? Good question! 
> 
> And as always, all feedback is appreciated.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHOOOO finally done with this semester! While I do have a research job for the first half, this should mean I'll be able to start producing content a little faster. Fingers crossed.
> 
> In the meantime, I've been thinking over my past works, including the 7k of TordPauPat scraps that I'd worked on throughout the latter half of 2018. This is one of them, slightly edited to make more sense on its own. The idea of that was basically to juxtapose a bunch of different TPP ficlets in order to investigate their dynamic, like ETF but everything's not long as fuck for no reason. I've published a lot more of that than I'd thought, but excerpts include chapter ten of this collection and my fic [ A.T. Field. ](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17337758)This part was just me questioning why, if I write Tom as basically the bass-boosted version of Patryck, I prefer Tordtryck over TomTord. (Though I'm also not doing to act like the latter's fandom has had nothing to do with it.)
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

With Tom back, so is the question, roaring at the back of your mind, and you're not entirely sure why. Anyone's friends list is going to repeat personality types -- simulacrums of either yourself or your envy, plays reproduced and re-adapted with slight regional changes. And why should it matter? That shtick's been working great for Shakespeare.

 

But to give Matt even so small a retroactive victory as letting his high school taunts go undefended is something by which you, and far more importantly the Red Leader, cannot abide.

 

You try to search as subtly as you can, watching them through the way their brows furrow with the same intensity at a problem, the way their faces go slack with the same boredom as they turn in reports and assemble guns and deal with your human garbage. Tom still drinks, Patryck only socially, far as you ever see. You wait, and watch, and invite only Patryck back into your bed, spreading your organic hand over his side of the sheets when he gets up in the morning (always so much earlier than you, no matter when (if?) he goes to sleep). It's cold in a way that reminds you of home. 

 

And then your army razes a manufacturing city, burns it to the ground.

 

Patryck leads the operation beautifully, even for his first time. Both he and Tom are stationed away from your platoon, walkie-talkie conversations curt. The panic of the townsfolk cotton up your ears and the feel of flames, almost close enough to kiss your skin, sets off the beast in you, guns blazing, lungs aching from your own screams. And so it isn't until you've spotted him sitting outside a burning house, a wistful look on his face, that you approach him and realize that this is his hometown and that the building before you two looks older than all the rest, than modernity itself. 

 

You want to ask, but you don't.

 

He sits calmly, breathing in the fumes, no doubt well-acquainted  now with smoke from your and Paul's filthy habits. You stand there, silent, your blood still in your veins. He sits, and watches, and after a few relatively uneventful minutes he sighs, standing up with a casual roll of his shoulders. 

 

And walks away, giving you only a nod of acknowledgement.

 

 You think you understand now.


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was physically restrained from posting this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I wanna post a big chunk of Edd's signature chapter [the way I just did Matt's but hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18765256)

“You’re an artist, aren’t you?” Red Leader asks.

Edd nods, forehead still in the edge of the room, staring down at the spider casually building its web between his feet, ignoring his existence entirely. 

His shoulders tense as Red Leader walks across the room, as he hears something wet pull, like picking a -

Rosebush.

Edd cranes his neck up to see the rose eye between Red Leader’s fingers, the thorny optic nerve exposed, brought down to his teeth, and cut.

A single rose, stem straight as an arrow, sharp as a dagger.

The petals tickle the top of Edd’s head. “Here,” Red Leader says, like a command. “Draw me something sexy.”

One shake. Two.

Finally Edd snatches it out of Red Leader’s hand, already regretting the brazenness of the action, bracing for another punch or kick or slap.

But Red Leader merely smiles, pulling a small pocket legal pad out of one his pockets, dropping it to Edd’s side. Edd curls inward, feeling the glossy pen in his fingers, hoping he can somehow make himself invisible to the forestborn.

Then Red Leader gives a chuckle and walks away, locking the door behind him.

* * *

The forestborn erases Edd’s work with his hand. “Make them bigger,” he says, smearing black blood-ink across the page. 

A quirked eyebrow.

“Her breasts, make them bigger.”

Rolled eyes.

The forestborn reaches through the bars of the wooden cage, towards his pen. “Want me to do it?”

Edd scoots away to the furthermost side of the cage, letting out a cat-like hiss.

The creature only smiles.

* * *

“How well do your know the royal bloodbound?” Red Leader asks as Edd covers his latest drawing with his body.

Edd bristles, shrugs. “Not too well, why?”

“Because I wanted to ask,” Red Leader says, sitting down on Edd’s pallet, “if you knew of a bloodbound named Thomas Rossoler.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell," he lies, eyes shooting down to his lap, feeling the pad grow wet in his hands. _Why do you care? It's just the new guy._

Besides, if Red Leader can control his bloodbound, why not just force this Thomas guy to walk right on up to him?

_Well, probably a limited area of effect, dumbass._

Red Leader sighs, rubs a hand over the scarred side of his face. “I worry about him, sometimes. But I'm certain you'll be meeting him soon.”

Edd slowly lifts his head. “Why would that be?” he asks.

Red Leader lifts his own hand, revealing a third red string tied around his finger, mingling with Edd’s and Paul's on the floor and dissolving into the air as it trails out of the room.


	29. genesis 4:8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my goooddddddd my sister dared me to post some of Edd's CB chapter in-between telling me how crying to "Waterloo" by ABBA was the lowest moment of her life, but holy FUCK the dialogue was so bad. Edd's was the only chapter I didn't get to in my initial revision and holy fuck did it show. Why didn't she pull a Cain and brain me in my sleep with a brick.
> 
> Anyway.

_Hey Edd,_

_You know I’m not one for corny apologies and all that jazz. So just imagine I wrote a half page or so about how I’m reevaluating my life and how I want things to be right between us now that my days are numbered. Make it so good you stain this with some tears._

_I have something I want to give to you, so meet me in the east gardens. Alone, please. I mean, you can bring someone if you want, but it’ll ruin the mood and for once it won’t be my fault._

_Tonight, 10pm. I’m starting to understand why you hate large parties._

_Eduardo._

Well, the paper tests negative for anthrax poisoning, and any excuse to leave the boring clusterfucks that are royal birthday balls is one worth pursuing. So when the time comes, Edd ducks into the bathroom, Matt and Hellucard guarding, and pulls off his suit for a bland t-shirt and well-loved sweats.

“Are you sure you wanna go alone?” Matt asks, voice low.

“You’re one to talk,” Edd quips back, shrugging on his emerald jacket.

“That was years ago."

 “And you haven’t changed a bit.”

“I got my tits cut off! That’s a pretty bloody substantial change.”

“But the same hamster’s been running in there since we were fourteen.” Edd lightly taps Matt’s temple as he pushes open the back door with his tailbone. The night is cold and the wind screaming with a vengeance, bringing with it the smell of overly-perfumed bodies, alcohol, and oranges from the grove.

“His  _name_  is Brian and he’s very dedicated to his exercise routine!”

Edd pushes Matt's face away, holding him at arm's length as Matt tries to swipe at him. “Hell, you have some change?”

Hellucard fishes out enough from his pockets to buy Edd a bottle of coke; he takes a swig for good luck, then goes off to find his brother.

* * *

 “What’s up, Eduardo?” Edd calls from across the gardens, to where Eduardo is sitting on the rim of the fountain of the Dayspring, some avant-garde piece where his lopped limbs are connected into a spiral by wire rendered invisible by the dark.

Eduardo crushes his cigarette under his heel and says, “Nothing much. Now get over here, this thing isn’t gonna gift itself.” As he inclines his head towards the red-wrapped shoe-box and woven basket sitting besides him.

Edd sits down under the Dayspring’s bloody hands, crossed to form bird’s wings, the gifts sandwiched between them. He takes the shoe-box up, gently rattles it by his ear. “What is it?”

“Open it and you’ll see, dum—” Eduardo bites his tongue. “Just open it.”

So Edd does, letting the wrapping paper scatter in the breeze as he unveils a microscope made of aluminum – red and white aluminum, to be exact, with hints of polar bears. “Oh,  _wow.”_

“To help you find your dick,” Eduardo says proudly.

“Oh, wow.”

“I’m kidding.” Eduardo gently punches his shoulder – so gently the touch is a ghost, which means Eduardo is holding himself back, frighteningly self-conscious of his newfound strength.

Then, after a moment: “You’re genuinely trying to be nice to me,” Edd says, voice too amazed, smile too wide for his brother’s liking.

Eduardo smiles back. “Just don’t tell anyone.”

Edd will remember this conversation, when his half-brother leaves him for dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Well,” Red Leader says. “That was a lot less satisfying than I thought it would be. Yanov, will you get the sledgehammer, please?”


	30. gore warning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So apparently I wrote this very early January of this year, which is close enough to 2018 that I'm putting it here. I post old vent fic when I'm stressed out about things; leave me alone.
> 
> Graphic gore / Tord whump warning, plz no bully.

Their argument is a landslide from the car to the underground base, words worms in its guts -- in _his_ guts, in his chest and in his skin, feeding and breeding and crawling so nosily Tord has to dig his nails into his knee to keep from scratching them out.  
  
_We need a hospital /No-- we need to keep him here/ He's gonna lose his fucking arm! / We're gonna lose everything we've all worked for!_  
  
The harpoon had grazed his side, nicked it good -- a flap of pale skin still hanging over the red, like when he accidentally cut Matt's finger with scissors in sixth grade. Matt had let out a loud yell, but more out of shock than anything.  
  
A fat white worm crawls out and lands on the floor. He doesn't say anything at all.  
  
Used to be, when he wanted to cry, he could simply press his nail into the pad of his finger, hard enough to feel like a vaccine needle, and that would be enough to kill the urge almost instantly. Tord bounces his leg so hard he can see out the corner of his eye Patryck's knuckles grip white on the steering wheel, desperately swallowing the urge to scream at him to cut that shit out.  
  
_What are we gonna do about the robot?/ THAT's what you're focused on? Unfuckingbelievable._  
  
Tord sits in the car even as they get out and stand in front of each other, Paul rushing through cigarettes and Patryck stomping after him every time he tries to walk away, arms folded over his chest.  
  
_Are mom and dad getting divorced?_ Edd or Matt would sing-song every time Tord and Tom would beat each other to an impasse. _Is it because of me?_  
  
_Idiots. What was I thi--_  
  
Tord brings his bloody hand up to his mouth and bites. Sinks his teeth deep into the limp limb, tasting sickeningly cooked flesh and blisters that burst like fruit gushers in his mouth. Tries to wiggle his fingers, can't. Tries to lift without his shoulder. Can't.  
  
Swallows the blood down, ignoring how his stomach twists.  
  
He could have watched them pick through the debris for hours.  
  
_We'll need to amputate/ We need to take him to an actual doctor / Oh so you wanna give us away? / I want us to lie and say he got into a car accident or something; think you fucking idiot! / you're the idiot/prick/jackass/ should've never let him go alone / should have just burst in and gunned them all down / Red / Red / your fault / fault_  
  
_Red, what do you think we should do?_  
  
_We want to save your arm, much as we can._  
  
_It won't be easy but I think we can--_  
  
_Wait_ , Patryck calls as Tord merely stands up and starts walking towards the bed of spikes leaned up against the wall; if he listens carefully over the screams of the prisoner next door, he can hear a very certain song. _Red, are you even listening to us?_  
  
_He might not be able to hear us?_  
  
Tord leans against the wall, tipping his head back, ruined arm dangling by his side. Closes his eyes, listens for the laughter that's trapped inside the wall of Hilary's old army base.  
  
Hilary didn't go down easy, but he certainly looked happy to see him again, behind his eyes.  
  
Eyes black and always swirling with disdain, like --  
  
_Ridiculous, he could hear me back there perfectly fine._  
  
Patryck must be confused because Tord's vague nodding along was only a pantomime of communication, but it's one he's gotten used to.  
  
His skin feels rotten through.  
  
_Tord?_ That name sings and stings, the invocation too concerned, too close, too **him**. _Can you hear me? We just want to help you, buddy._  
  
_What do you want to do with your arm?_ Paul barks, and as if giving his own opinion, holds up a bottle of Smirnoff vodka.  
  
Tord raises his left arm and slams it into the nearest spike, pulling upwards, feeling the tearing and shredding and cracking through several closed, bolted doors. Flesh peels away from bone; something deeper inside him than he ever thought he could feel _cracks;_ the lower half of his arm hits his torn pants leg with a wet smack. The other half is clinging onto the bone, but only barely, and Tord isn't sure how the whole thing doesn't fall off.  
  
So simply put: he's just fucked up again.  
  
Twin shocked faces, wide brown eyes, mouths silent _O_ s.

Green, yellow, pink -- what difference does a color truly make?  
  
"Does that answer your question?" He asks, voice crystal clear as the screams and song suddenly stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just realized no one in this fandom uses the word "whump" but me.

**Author's Note:**

> You can come bother me at my [ tumblr! ](https://the-resurrection-3d.tumblr.com/) Hope you enjoyed my endless bullshit. Thanks for reading ! <3


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